1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to manufacturing apparatuses for manufacturing electronic monolithic ceramic components and, more particularly, to a manufacturing apparatus for manufacturing an electronic monolithic ceramic component having a laminate that is formed by laminating a plurality of ceramic green sheets of a plurality of types in a predetermined order.
2. Description of the Related Art
When electronic monolithic ceramic components such as a multilayer ceramic board, a monolithic ceramic capacitor, and a monolithic ceramic inductor are manufactured, a step of laminating a plurality of ceramic green sheets of a plurality of types in a predetermined order is performed.
The ceramic green sheets laminated in the above-mentioned lamination step are supplied by a sheet supplier which typically sorts, and stacks a plurality of sheets according to the type.
For example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 9-104016 discloses an apparatus which produces a laminate by supplying a plurality of ceramic green sheets of a desired type from a sheet supplier and by laminating the supplied ceramic green sheets according to a predetermined order.
The sheet supplier in the above-disclosed apparatus sorts ceramic green sheets of a plurality of types according to the type and prepares the ceramic green sheets ready to be supplied, and the plurality of ceramic green sheets is sorted according to the type while being arranged on a planar surface.
For this reason, the utilization efficiency of area in the sheet supplier is low, and the area needed to install a sheet supplier increases to meet the requirement for a diversity of ceramic green sheets to produce a desired electronic monolithic ceramic component.